MOSCOW: The protests sweeping Russia have failed to shake the Russian Orthodox Church's support for former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, which regards him as the guarantor of the country's stability.
Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has made no secret of who he would like to win the March 4 presidential polls, a vote of support that is hugely important given the Orthodox Church's growing influence since the fall of the Soviet Union.
"You have played an enormous personal role to set the course of history in our country. I would like to thank you," Kirill told Putin earlier this month at a meeting along with other religious leaders.
Russia managed to overcome the chaos of the 1990s that followed the break-up of the USSR "thanks to a divine miracle and with the active assistance of the leaders of our country," Kirill said.
At the same meeting on February 9, Putin also won effusive praise from Russia's Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin and Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar as he prepares to move back to the Kremlin after a four-year stint as prime minister.
Kirill has not entirely shrugged away the protests, saying in January the rallies should lead to an "adjustment of the political course" and it would be a "very bad sign" if the authorities ignored them.
But he expressed confidence that the authorities would be able to make the right decisions, warning the protestors they could be manipulated and risk destroying the country as during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
"The Orthodox faithful do not know how to demonstrate. They pray in monasteries, cells and at home. They are worried about what is happening and establish a parallel with the immorality of the pre-revolutionary years and the chaos and destructions of the 1990s."
Over 70 percent of the Russian population declares itself to be Orthodox Christian even if polls show only 5-7 percent regularly practice the faith.
"The Church may favour a dialogue between the opposition and the Russian authorities but it has not seized the chance to become a 'third force'," said Alexei Beglov, a historian specialising in the Orthodox Church.
When he first became Kremlin chief in 2000, Putin declared that "the Orthodox Church is the guardian of moral and spiritual values of Russia."
He has since never been shy of being photographed, candle in hand, attending major church services. Putin revealed this year at a Christmas service in his native Saint Petersburg that his mother had had him secretly christened.
In return, Putin has received solid support not only from Kirill but also his late predecessor Alexy II who died in 2008. "The authorities need that symbolic legitimacy that the Orthodox Church can confer on them," said Alexander Verkhovsky of the Sova analytical centre in Moscow.
The Orthodox Church obtained from the state the restitution of churches and monasteries confiscated during Soviet times, the presence of chaplins in military units and initiation courses into Orthodox culture at certain schools.
"This alliance with the authorities limits the Church's room for manoeuvre. The patriarch is the hostage to his relations with the authorities," said Boris Falikov of the Moscow-based Centre for Comparative Religious Studies.
Several figures from the Orthodox Church have clearly expressed their hostility towards the opposition. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the church's department for relations with society, openly welcomed the prospect of Putin returning to the Kremlin, saying it promised Russia "a long period of stability and removed all risk of a revolution".
Archimandrite Ilya, the spiritual father of the patriarch, went even further, describing the demonstrations against Putin as "a provocation by people who are trying to strew trouble in Russia."
He alleged the protestors were being paid to show up, repeating an allegation also made by Putin. Yet other priests in the Russian Orthodox Church have used blogs and social networks to give a very different viewpoint.
"Saying that the protestors are being paid by the West and those who want to organise a revolution is very unfair. The people are protesting for moral reasons," wrote one Moscow priest, Alexei Uminsky, on the site Orthodoxy and the World.
The Orthodox Church, he said, must make clear it is "supporting the search for the truth and the refusal to live in falsehood."
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